Following a disaster, the majority of families rebuild their homes themselves. In this paper, we consider how the physical environment influences such ‘self-recovery’ by investigating disasters in the Philippines (typhoons Haiyan in 2013 and Haima in 2016) and Nepal (the Gorkha earthquake - 2015). Despite the many differences in the disaster contexts, there are some common barriers to self-recovery (and building back better) in a substantially changed and dynamic multi-hazard, post-disaster environment. These are related to changes in water supply (shortage or surplus), impacts of post-disaster geohazard events on infrastructure (particularly affecting transport) and the availability of technical advice. People face a broad spectrum of challenges as they recover and tackling these ‘geo-barriers’ may help to create a more enabling environment for self-recovery. The findings point to what needs to be in place to support self-recovery in dynamic physical environments, including geoscience information and advice, and restoration of infrastructure damaged by natural hazard events. Further research is necessary to understand the issues this raises for the shelter and geoscience communities, particularly around availability of geoscience expertise, capacity and information at a local scale.

灾难发生后，大多数家庭自己重建房屋。在本文中，我们通过调查菲律宾（2013年台风海盐和2016年海马）和尼泊尔（2015年戈尔卡地震）的灾难，来研究物理环境如何影响这种“自我恢复”。尽管灾难环境存在许多差异，但在充满变化的动态多灾后灾难环境中，自我恢复（并更好地重建）存在一些常见的障碍。这些与供水变化（短缺或过剩），灾后地质灾害事件对基础设施的影响（特别是对运输的影响）以及技术咨询的可获得性有关。人们在恢复时面临着各种各样的挑战，应对这些“地理障碍”可能有助于创造一个更有利于自我恢复的环境。调查结果指出，需要采取哪些措施来支持动态物理环境中的自我恢复，包括地球科学信息和建议，以及恢复因自然灾害事件损坏的基础设施。有必要进行进一步的研究，以了解这对庇护所和地球科学界提出的问题，特别是在地方范围内可获得的地球科学专业知识，能力和信息方面。